YEAR: 1978

SEASON: Fall

MONTH: September

STATE: Ohio

COUNTY: Summit County

NEAREST TOWN: Tallmadge Ohio

OBSERVED: I was playing hide and go seek with my sisters and their friends around September of 1978. I was nine at the time. We were living in Tallmadge Ohio at the time of the incident. We were all inside the house and it was my turn to find them. It was geting dark outside so my mom told us to stay inside and play. Well I covered my eyes and began counting and my sisters went and hid. When I began to search for them I could not find them so I figured that they went outside anyway even though they were not supposed to. Out the door I went. We had alot of woods behind my house with a grove of large pines. It was just about dark by now and I thought I saw something move in the trees on the outside of our property. I snuck around the trees to find " my sister" and as I got closer to what was behind the trees it moved away from me staying one step ahead of me. I tried to catch up to it thinking it was my sister. I ran around the pines and could just catch a glimpse of it in the trees, finally I gave up and stood by a tree exhausted. All of the sudden the tree gently moved behind me and I turned and looked through the pine tree. I saw a set of large eyes staring at me with a dark shaped face. It was then I realized it wasn't my sister. I stared at it and moved slowly around tree and it moved to the other side and we kept eye contact. Then I heard a weird high pitched noise back in the trees and it ran off. Then I realized it wasnt my sister and ran like hell back to the house...When I got inside all my sisters and friends were there and they said they never left the house and hid with my mom in her room. She said they were there the whole time. I am 34 years old now and to this day I can honestly say that I saw a young bigfoot that day. Had to be because when we made eye contact it wasn't much bigger than I was.

ALSO NOTICED: High pitched noise heard.

OTHER WITNESSES: none

OTHER STORIES: none

TIME AND CONDITIONS: right before dark. Full moon was out

ENVIRONMENT: Pine forest. Alot of vines present in woods.

Follow-up investigation report by BFRO Investigator Marc DeWerth:

The witness lived there for two years. He now resides in northeastern PA. He cannot remember the exact street location since it has been so long. The wooded area was behind a housing development about two miles from the elementary school. Today he is an active hunter but still has fear going into the woods by himself. He noted that when they made eye contact it was not a scary look, they were yellowish in color. It had a pudgy ball-like nose and smelled pungent like a wet dog. It was maybe 5 feet tall and very quick!! He heard a strange noise then it ran away. Nothing was ever seen again.